You occasionally read in the papers about a coup in Africa or Latin America. The movies make it sound very easy to arrange. This book makes clear just how complex an undertaking a coup is, why they happen, and why they don't happen here. It's brilliantly readable and entertaining as well as informative.

This book does a valuable service in debunking the myths about why the military intervenes in politics in Latin America. It's not about the Cold War or the conspiracies of the CIA or international corporations. It's about the struggle for power between military chieftains in societies where there are no firewalls between the military and politics. Mr. Farcau has been there and has seen it from the inside. Very accessible.

In 1932, Bolivia and Paraguay went to war over a large, flat, sparsely watered plateau called the Gran Chaco. Over the course of three years, the two armies, exhibiting constant bravery and periodic stupidity, dueled, generating at least 90,000 deaths. In this book, Bruce Farcau does a masterful job of educating the reader on what happened during those three unhappy years.

Sadly, this book (I read the 1996 edition) misses being the masterpiece it should have been. First of all, as with too many recent works, it is riddled with typographical errors. (For example, the very first page of the preface (the first page of the book) says, "In this book I have tried to pain [sic] a human face on a decidedly inhuman war.") Secondly, this book contains only one map, a map reprinted from a magazine, and its color-coded illustrations sink into near meaninglessness in the black-and-white reproduction.

That said, though, this is a great book, and well worth reading for anyone interested in learning about the Chaco War. With a quick proofreading, some better maps, and maybe a few pictures, a second edition of this book could be a masterpiece in fact. So, I give this book an only somewhat qualified recommendation.

The author lavishly details each little skirmish of a war few have heard of and fewer have any interest in. Truly a war of unknown soldiers, from private to general, each dies in his own little patch of a parched hell known as the Chaco. After three years the body count reaches 100,000, fully 40% of the total combatants...and they may have been the lucky ones.

If ever there was a war of futility;started by miscalculation,maintained out of pride and stubbornness, and finally ended by the absolute exhaustion born of the knowledge that there were no more men left to submit to that meatgrinder that was the Chaco.The final indignity for all concerned was that the war could not even be ended until a Nobel Peace Prize had been guaranteed to the "honest broker" called upon to mediate the differences between the two countries.

The winners gained nothing; the losers lost everything.

Yet isn't this war in a nutshell.Futile,miserable,degrading.
Yet there are lessons to be learned from this outrage and of all the lessons, the most important seems to be that it is the "little wars" amongst the most feeble powers that incite our worst bullies to begin the bigger wars that consume millions.

Upon seeing that the League of Nations could or would do nothing about the War in the Chaco,Musellini attached Ethiopia;Hitler bullied Austria and the Japanese became sure that nothing would be done about their incursions in Korea and China.If the League could not stop the most feeble and timid, what harm would they attempt if the aggressor was bold and powerful.

The author shows the full horror of the Chaco to remind us that the "Great Wars" do not come of their own volition but as a result of the vacuum created when good men fail to act to save our most vulnerable...from themselves.

The author provides a very nice overview of a war that many people have never heard about. Considering that many readers (myself included) may not have an complete grasp of early-mid 1900's South American politics, the author has done remarkably well providing background information for the reader. The text is well textured but to the point, and gives one valuable insights into the motives and actions of the people involved and of the war as a whole. Excellent reading on an obscure topic.

One of the little heralded wars of South America is the War of the Pacific. This war pitted Chile against the combined Armies of Bolivia and Peru. Chile (the Prussia of South America) defeated both nations in the first year of war and took the nitrate lands of both Peru and Bolivia. Then Chile invaded Peru and captured the capital. Why is Bolivia land locked? She lost her coastland to Chile in this war.
Farcau does a good job detailing how Chile was organized better in finance and the military to defeat her neighbors who had a larger population. Control of the seas by the modern Chile Navy also had a drastic effect on the Allies (Bolivia and Peru). As detailed in a previous review, the author does a great job of relating the history of this war in a scholarly and readable format. One thing missing in this book is maps, which would have lent the reader an understanding of the geography of the war. I cannot understand why maps were left out. The book is a good read about a long forgotten war.

Bruce Farcau's book as to Bolivia's disastrous war with Chile is very truthful in every aspect, historical data, and documentation. It also demonstrates of Bolivia's lack of a military character, that was again demonstarted in the 20th. century, in the Chaco War.
The historical details of Chinese migration in Peru is astonishing, and well written, and it also highlights the mercenary efforts of the Chilean officer Patricio Lynch, who utilised the Chinese (who were kept in slave-like conditions), to his benefit.
This is a must read for any Latin American historian, such as myself.

Well done and written.

Finally, a book about this conflict by an American author who combines modern scholarly methods with readable style! Bruce Farcau writes with knowledge, flair and compassion about his subject, sustaining remarkable objectivity throughout the book. Money, deceit, gallantry, violence, tactical and strategic brilliance and folly --- The War of the Pacific is a splendid microcosm of all the elements of military, economic, and political strategy, and Farcau does it justice. His analysis of the causes of the war is impeccable, without the cant found in many South American and European authors, or the dry didactic tone of academic dissertations. His humane and balanced treatment of the conduct of a war that includes the first combat on the high seas between ironclads, a major amphibious invasion, set-piece battles using modern weapons, and a protracted guerrilla war, is admirable. I recommend it most highly to any library, whether personal, academic or professional, that deals with South American issues. Farcau also discusses in some detail the relationship of U.S. and European internal politics and finance to this war, which may make it of interest to readers in other fields. Students of political science in a fractured world should read his discussion of the advantages --- and hindrances --- in war of an ordered democracy fighting against dictatorships and failing states. This is the only book (of several dozen) on the War of the Pacific over whose conclusions our Chilean and Peruvian officers have not quarreled. The price is somewhat daunting, but it is worth it.

Historical amusement about the Maximillian episode in Mexico. The book is serious about the history, viewing the times primarily from the point of view of three characters: an officer, and an official on the royalist side, and the Empress Charlotte herself. The depiction of the urban fighting was particularly good. It was also very good in depicting a time when fighters could show localized bravery, yet not have a deep commitment to the general cause for which they were fighting (cf Afghanistan and switching of sides). The narrator is a German officer in World War I who has fictional encounters with the Empress Charlotte, still alive, and is given the diary of the Mexican officer. The German officer's character is well drawn. The book is marred by Farcau's attempt to develop colorful characters and exciting plot details, both of which ultimately fall flat.

A Little Empire Of Their Own is a superbly written historical novel set in a yesteryear era of Mexico and Europe. Author Bruce Farcau has paid meticulous attention to historical background accuracy with respect to Mexico and its politics as he introduces us to the Empress Charlotte, a seemingly mad royal recluse who in 1914 is living in a shabby Belgian palace where she plots revenge that will ultimately bring destruction to one of Europe's great dynasties for having betrayed and abandoned her and the Emperor Maximilian decades earlier in their brief and turbulent reign in the 1860s. A Little Empire Of Their Own is a riveting, very highly recommended story of adventure, romance, history and war.

The author uses the unique vehicle of the Macchiavelian plotting by the aged, insane Empress Charlotte to tell the story of the brief French conquest of Mexico in the 1860s and the tragic-comic empire they set up under her husband, Maximilian of Austria. The novel is actually set in Belgium during World War I, where poor, mad Charlotte is locked away in a little chateau, and from which unlikely place she plots the destruction of the Habsburg dynasty for having abandoned her late husband. It's refreshing to see a female character who is sharp, witty, and vicious and is used to being the smartest person in the room. You can tell that the author has lived in both Mexico and Europe and has a firm grasp of the history for both time periods involved. This is a real page-turner, and it's also refreshing to read a novel that doesn't involve modern day lawyers for a change.